From Justin Gawel: Eccentric Dirtbag
Although I have only been in this world for seven years, I can safely say that you are my true hero and will undoubtedly be for the rest of my time on this big blue marble. You’ve been there for me since the day I was born and you continue to be there for me, even when Mom or Dad can’t. No matter what my problem is I know I can always come to you and, within a few hours, you’ll have made me completely forget about it.
You may not be always with me, but you are always in my thoughts, and, I hope, that I’m never far from yours.
You’re a paradigm of benevolence; sitting with us, day after day, expecting no reward, but bringing pleasure and enriching our lives with the stories and life lessons you’re perpetually teaching us. Even when it’s a story I’ve heard before, I will gladly experience the ride again and see if there aren’t any more wisdom nuggets I can’t extract. You’re the perfect humanitarian, deriving all of your pleasure from making others happy. Whenever I hear the virtue, “It’s better to give than to receive” you immediately spring to mind and I feel warm inside as if someone put a freshly knit Christmas sweater on my heart. Here is to hoping that in the course of history your noble existence and kindness aren’t marginalized.
Nights when we get to eat dinner with you are my favorite; everyone’s always in a better mood. Dad won’t complain about Obama, my older brother, Zack, won’t rant about how he’s mad all the time and doesn’t know why, and Mom won’t hardly ever sob while whimpering through tears, “This isn’t the life I pictured,” over and over again during a dinner with you. It’s really quite perfect; you really do a great job of calming us all down and letting us refocus on what’s really important in our lives.
The depth of your wisdom never ceases to amaze me; I don’t know how you do it, since you rarely leave the house, but it’s evident how well versed you are in all things worldly. All sorts of knowledge, knowledge I would never expect you to know from wildlife, to antiques, to human history. I’m baffled at how you do it, but I still remain spellbound by the comprehension you demonstrate on some of the most obscure issues; rambling on for an hour on occasion about something I was never even aware of until then. You seriously must talk to some really smart friends while I’m at school everyday.
When I’m with you I feel an aura from you unlike anything else; it’s like being encompassed by a soft quilt made of tenderness. I don’t even need to be touching you; just your presence alone is enough to make me feel loved. I sincerely hope that you can feel the heartfelt reciprocity coming from my little body because I know I absolutely mean it.
Now, can you please, please tell Mom, Dad, and Zack that at seven every night it’s my turn to be with you because I really like watching Rugrats at seven and then Ren & Stimpy at seven-thirty on you? I hate it so much when Dad insists he has to watch the news, or Zack wants to watch wrestling, or even when Mom says I’ve watched enough of you for one day and I get shooed off to my room where there are no TVs for me to watch. Pretty please just help me out so I can be with you more.
Post Script: Teacher says I’m writing at the level of an apathetic adult baby. I can’t tell; is this a good thing or a bad thing?
The Old American West was a place where a man could spend a month’s pay in a day—a phrase that rings even more true in today’s age of hard drugs and persuasive speedboat salesmen. It was a place where hog stealing was a lifestyle choice and not just an activity for weekends and vacations. It was a simpler time then. A time where the currency of the day was violence, racism, and alcoholism, a currency the “authentic” western steakhouse did not accept as my down payment for the reception after my cowboy wedding.
It’s appropriate when you think about it. With our relationship being built on the solid bedrock of grain alcohol, gambling, and deceiving Native Americans, what would be more fitting than to celebrate our love than a cowboy themed wedding?
Our long-term commitment runs deep; much like a cattle drive. By that I mean we’ve eaten nothing but dried beef for months at a time and we’ve both contracted Typhoid at least once. Further, and in my indomitable spirit of full disclosure, we’ve both put on some heifer-weight mostly due to our perpetual grazing while inside the friendly confines of Golden Corral.
I know we’ve already booked a guide for our honeymoon to walk us down the Trail of Tears, but if we can find a real cattle drive happening, well, I might just have to send that reservation, pun-intended, down the Trail of Tears—Andrew Jackson style! A full fortnight of cattle driving; how awesome would that be? Wrangling, prodding, and branding all day—it’ll be like the three weeks I spent as a gym teacher. Plus, nothing beats capping off a full day of poking cows as a cowpoke than spending a passion filled night cowpoking the new Mrs. Justin Gawel.
The honeymoon plans can wait, I suppose, the ceremony and reception are more pressing matters. The only think I can say for definite is that we’re going to need a good amount of live ammunition and salted meats to get us all through both. I’ll be sure to book a blind, Negro piano player, because, you know, I guess I’m just cliché that way. Hopefully Stevie Wonder’s assistant will get back to me soon.
I don’t think we’ll serve communion at the service, but we will just perpetually passing around trays filled with assorted barbecue-sauce infused whiskies. If you want to imagine those as the blood of a much cooler, cowboy version of Jesus then, by all means, go right ahead.
Graciously, our good friend Mike has lent us the use of his new servant for any odds and ends around the wedding service. The servant man is a hard-working Cherokee, fresh off the reservation at the ripe age of seventy-six, and has agreed to work at Mike’s house in exchange for room, board, and grain alcohol. Lucky for us he’s clinically depressed, so he fits the criteria for our something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.
We’ll keep the vows simple—probably just a statement or two about supporting the Second Amendment and a promise to defend each other from bandits, loose women, and rogue cattle and that’ll be it. The service will end with us branding a cow with each other’s initials before processing out to the sounds of our favorite jug band. From there we will board our oxen-driven, covered wagon and embark down the trail where we will hunt at least twice, ford at a river, and, hopefully, arrive at the steakhouse still alive and, fingers-crossed, dysentery-free.
The staff at the reception steakhouse has assured me that we’ll be getting the complete package: a platter of steaks, a trough of gravy, and a trough of whiskey. I suppose they’ll have water there too, but if anyone needs anything more than that they can spend their own Confederate dollars on it. Frankly, if you need anything more than meat, alcohol, and gravy to have fun you’re probably doing something wrong.
After dinner our guests would eat their dessert steaks before we all turned to the dance floor to swing our sexual-partners to the styles and sounds of the finest eight-piece washboard and harmonica band in the county. We’d cut rugs into the night, stopping only for the more-than-occasional drink from the whiskey trough or to swindle any member of the Native American wait staff into trading us their family’s land rights in exchange for some “spiritual” beads off of the crappy art projects our children had made.
Saddle up, partner, we’re having a western wedding.
Oh, fancy meeting you here. I didn’t know they let fun-burglars who cheat on one of my best friends in this bar. Did you not have to pay cover again because you let the doorman smell your hair while you ate a bowl of cookie dough?
Yeah, I know this bouncer here throbs to the beat of a different sexual rhythm–and here you go again, trying to play the victim in a situation you provoked.
Come on; you know that you brought the goddamn cookie dough and you know you were the one propositioning that chubby bunny.
Go on, I know why you started talking to me tonight; you want to know what he’s up to these days. You don’t genuinely care about the character arcs in my latest screenplay, “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, in which an eclectic bunch of idiot prostitutes compete against each other in a harrowing tale about racing the America’s Cup, do you? No, you just want to get me talking so you can casually inquire about your ex-boo, your former tickle-piece, your old, daily hot-beef treat.
Tsk, you really want to know, don’t you?
You really want to know if your decision to cheat on him on the first day of Ramadan was, in hindsight, a good decision, don’t you?
But, yeah, true, super ironic it was Ramadan, right?
Anyways, much to your delight I’m sure: he has been miserable since then. Just a real sack of old, dirty eggs to be around.
Well, I’m sorry if you haven’t heard that idiom before; I’m sorry you’ve had limited experience in your life with eggs and sacks!
Seriously though he’s a mess; he tried to write a few songs and channel the energy after you left. He tried them out at some coffee-house open-mics, but the partisan crowd mercilessly booed him when none of his songs sounded like “Wonderwall”. Subsequently, he lost his confidence and they fired his apprehensive ass from his stockbroker position. He moved back in with his parents and took the only work he could get.
Yup, you guessed it, an unsuccessful leach farmer while moonlighting as the village idiot. The pay isn’t enough to move out, but at least being the village idiot gives him dental coverage again.
You should really call him.
No, it wouldn’t be a bother; it wouldn’t be weird and he’d love to hear from you.
Why, would he love to hear from you? Oh, probably so he can rub it in your makeup-caked face how awesome his life is now!
Yes, that’s right. Call it what you like be it, gotcha, reversies, super-sike, jk, or J.K. Rowling; none of what I said before that last bit is true! He’s no leach farmer, he doesn’t live with his parents, and he doesn’t want to see or hear from you! His life sans-you is incredible. He works as an investor still, but on his own terms now; he just trades stocks, smokes cigarettes, and rakes in the buku bucks remotely from his fan boat.
Yeah, I know, I couldn’t believe it either; he bought a fucking fan boat! You know why he avoided the Facebook IPO?
No, he’s not genius enough to predict the stock dropping like that. No, it was more dumb luck he missed it. That morning he had harpooned a crocodile with a crossbow and was now going on the second hour of reeling it in while simultaneously trying to shoot at it with the rifle more. So yeah, he had bigger things to worry about than Facebook that morning.
Really, the only part of his life since you that wasn’t completely all smiles and McNuggets was his brief stay in the hospital.
No, it wasn’t an injury from that River Monster-esque crocosaurus. That crocodile he snagged was eventually shot beyond recognition
The hospital? Oh, yeah, he’s fine now.
Ah, yes, he went to the hospital last week after he dehydrated during a pansexual coke fiesta in a champagne-filled hot tub. Let me reiterate: he dehydrated; likely from all of the fluids him and Ving Rhames left in the many orifi of the tub as well as the ladies they picked up earlier at an NBA Finals after party co-hosted by Bruce Willis and Ray Charles. That’s my guess on the cause, but hey, I’m no Dr. Seuss.
I thought their party would be weird too, but they’re a fantastic host duo. Just top-notch.
After he went to the hospital though he literally had to stay there for five extra hours to graft skin on his palm after every man in the place gave him a high-five once the legend behind his hospitalization spread.
For a hospital stay it was pretty fun though. He ended up getting down and disorderly with this cute orderly, which, as you know, hospital sex is always pretty cool. Also, they served tacos for lunch the next day, which was also always pretty cool.
Oh, yes, I suppose I’m ahead of myself. He’s also best friends with Ving Rhames now. We met him after your ex and Ving both won the same lottery for $25 million and decided to open a club together in New York City.
Yes, I know that’s always been your dream; that’s why he named it after you. Truthfully, he claims he still carries a burning desire for you; a burning desire of contempt and disdain that burns with the fire of one thousand packets of hot sauce; a fire that will eventually cause him to burn down the club. In part the fire will be an effigy towards the skank-stain that you are, and, partially, the fire will be for the wicked, butt-load of insurance money that accompanies a burned down club.
